The Final Day

The last day of November is here. Hopefully, my recovery will begin to accelerate starting tomorrow. I decided to make a good faith effort to adhere to the 32 ounce fluid intake prescribed by my doctor. At first, I thought this would be impossible, but after doing it for three days and surviving, it appears I can do it. In fact, I have surprised myself by getting through meals without drinking anything except a few mouthfuls at the end. Coincidentally, my eyes have been feeling better since I started, to the point where I can use my old glasses now without any feeling of eye-strain. I'm starting to wonder if the low sodium was my whole problem from the beginning, the original cause of my eye-strain. But today my body has been feeling very tired. I had to stand around at a co-worker departure get-together today, and after a mere 25 minutes, I was ready to collapse into my chair. I'm not sure what to make of that, but it's a little worrisome.

The results of my MRI showed that there is nothing wrong with my pituitary which would cause an electrolyte imbalance. So that's good news. And the rest of my brain looks healthy too, except for a benign cyst in the back of my brain. He said it's nothing to worry about, except maybe to monitor it over the long term to make sure it doesn't get bigger. So I'm not worried about it--got more immediate problems. And there's not much I can do about it anyway.

Hopefully, the weekend and the end of November will do me some good. I would really like to get back to my normal self again.

November Nightmare

For the past few weeks, I have been in hell. I don't know what it is about Novembers, but each year something goes horribly bad for me in the eleventh month. Last year I smashed up my car on the first day of November, then later in the month, I had my earwax issue which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The year before that, my family was thrown into a panic when my dad was suffering from dizzy spells, and my mom ended up spending some time in a nursing home. This year, another nightmare has befallen me.

At the beginning of the month, I was suffering from unbearable eyestrain. The first round of new glasses was a disaster, since Pearlvision didn't properly match the base curve of my old ones. For two weeks, I had unbearable eyestrain and glasses which made my eyes feel even worse. As you all know, I get all freaked out when something is wrong with me, especially something that I cannot ignore, so of course, the eyestrain has thrown me into a panic. I'm on another pair of new glasses now, and they also make my eyes feel tired, though not quite as bad. Still, there is a weird feeling in my eyes that feels neither right nor good, and it makes me very uneasy. I can still go to work, but with serious limitations on my productivity, and I go home every night with my body feeling completely exhausted, and my eyes in need of rest. At least some of the anxiety has gone--two weeks ago, I wasn't even able to get any sleep. I'm hoping it's just a matter of adjusting to the new glasses. So far it's been a slow and painful process.

On top of that, my doctor told me that my sodium is low, approaching a dangerous level in fact. He thinks it might be because I drink too much water, but that he's never seen this problem before except in people who drink so much water that their ankles swell (mine don't). At first he told me to drink isotonic beverages like Gatorade instead of water, and I quickly got sick of Gatorade (although Lime flavored Gatorade Rain is actually pretty good). Now he tells me to cut my total fluid intake down to 32 ounces per day. Of course, there's no way I can do that--it is way too little. I'm down to ~64 ounces at present, and I estimate that is about half what I was drinking just a few weeks ago. Does that seem like a lot? 128 ounces is about 3.78 liters. I don't know, maybe that is too much. Anyway, he had me go in for an MRI the other day to make sure there isn't a problem with my brain that is causing the low sodium. My god, that was freaky! I didn't mind being stuck in a tube, but the MRI machine is god-damn LOUD! It made all kinds of loud buzzing noises, which went right through the earplugs they gave me. I had to sit through that for 45 minutes! I would not describe it as a pleasant experience. Haven't heard back from the doctor about it yet, so I'm guessing there was no bad news.

Ugh. So right now, I'm tired, nervous, and worried. I'm feeling tense about my eyes. My fluid intake is all different from before, and my body doesn't feel quite right. My sodium might be all screwed up. Actually, I'm surprised I'm doing as well as I am, considering what's going on. I can't wait for November to end this week. Friday can't come soon enough.